“ Girls ” from HBO shows a unique vision of trauma in “ American Bitch ”, with Matthew Rhys as a scary author

Why girls from Girls Act this way? This is the question that underpins five years of cultural responses disconcerted to the epic of Lena Dunham of dubious decisions, cruelty, narcissism and grace. Girls never gave a simple answer to the question. Despite a flawless denominational dialogue and an occasional background development and a strong cultural satire, Hannah Horvath and her friends always have an air of Athena, notably trained. Asking why these girls overthrow drinks and get married impulsively and vomit bunk beds is like asking why someone exists at all.

It did Girls Unusual in a cultural landscape where the tragic flashback is the essential decoder of individual motivation. To take two recent examples of HBO, The young pope connected the abandonment of Pope Pious’s childhood to his torment for adults, and WestworldThe so-called “key glimpse” was that being human was to remember suffering. In society, more broadly, the dialogues in progress on trauma, triggering and privilege – dialogues that Dunham often stops as a public figure – insists that personal history must be taken as seriously as current conduct.

On GirlsParental problems occasionally surfonent – Jessa’s laminated father, the closed of Hannah, the controlling mother of Marnie – and the chemistry of the brain appeared in the line of Hannah’s Toc. But sometimes it seemed that the show wanted to satiate the notion of explaining the character through trauma. Once, Hannah remembers telling her mother that her baby-sitter had touched her vagina at 3, but added that she was probably lying down. During the workshop of the Iowa writer, his peers insisted that his news on violent sex had to be non -fiction; The joke was that it actually reflected its adventurous present: “The time when I took some quaaludes and asked my boyfriend to hit my chest.”

The safe episode of provocative this week “American Bitch” – was published on online platforms now and broadcast on Sunday evening HBO – has enabled the point of view of the series on the cause and psychological effect. In this document, Hannah visits a famous author, Chuck Palmer (Matthew Rhys), after writing a test on the accusations that he had served female fans of college age. Chuck argues his arguments for innocence, Hannah recounts some details of her past, and the two seem to understand – then Chuck takes out his penis and the press against Hannah. It is a story of personal monstrosity and trauma, but it is also a story on a system: a gender dynamic that ensures a common experience of degradation for women, whether in their past or in the present.

Chuck Palmer has a surprising amount in common with Hannah. His state alluded to the OCD. He proposes that writers need stories more than anything else, echoing Hannah’s experiences Girls. The two bind on their love of Philip Roth, agreeing that “you cannot let politics dictate what you read or that fucks you” (the lyrics of Chuck). And the most revealing, Chuck claims to want to understand the person he talks about, but constantly interrupts with his own observations – perhaps a sexist tic, but also a very familiar narcissist to Girls viewers. In all these things, Dunham can sketch some ideas on the intrinsic features that make a writer.

But most of their conversation is a confrontation of biographies. Chuck underlines his loneliness, the depression of his daughter, the hostility of his ex-wife and the sadness of the life of books. When Hannah suggests an inappropriate balance of power by connecting to him with the girls on the road, Chuck resumes that the real imbalance is that “it looks like a Victoria’s Secret model and I have not lost my virginity until the age of 25 and on accotana”. He is the victim in this reading. Women who complain online exploit his fame and despair as well as the power of the Internet to amplify harmful complaints.

It seems that this version of events almost persuades Hannah, who apologizes for having written something that has turned Chuck upside down. But the excuses are colored by all the butter preceded. Chuck tells him several times how smart he thinks. He gives her a signed copy of Roth When she was good. And he claims that he invited her to try to correct his true error with his accusers: do not “push” enough to know them as people. When he then asks questions about his life, Hannah laughs and cheerfully answers.

But during a point earlier and trying in the conversation, Hannah tells a less happy song in her story. In fifth year, her English teacher, Mr. Lasky, took pleasure in her according to her talent as a writer:

If it is the long -awaited revelation of Hannah Horvath about her past, that relatively light: no rape, no violence, just neck rubbing in class. But her insecure is in the way she corresponds to a diagram of distorted gender relationships. Chuck is like Mr. Lanksy: an older and powerful man praising the intellectual talents of a younger woman – but also linking this praise to the flesh. Hannah’s value as a writer and his value as a body were a long time ago swirling together by a porter, and Chuck did something very similar to young potential authors with whom he had sex. If they consented, what did they agree? A validation of their mind, or the idea that what really matters is their body?

The trauma here is not just What Has happened either. It is in the way in which the honest expressions of the discomfort of women are welcomed by the hostility and the invalidation of men under legalistic pretexts. Consent is extremely important, but the question is not entirely legal in this case. It is moral, social and emotional. Hannah does not seem to want Chuck or Mr. Lasky in prison. She just means the truth about a disturbing and degrading dynamic, and she is told – both by the guy of Bushwick’s party and by Chuck – that she is wrong to do.

The sick torsion is that the trauma has now been amplified and reconstituted on Hannah for speaking. Chuck flats, convinces her that he is not a monster, then decompresses and pushes against her without warning. For a while, Hannah seems confused; For another moment, she seems to consider following him – she grabs him. Then she panics and shouts.

He gives her a bad smile. All the respect he had previously paid him was made a joke. His praise of his mind was preliminary to the recall that what he really loved was his body. And in Hannah’s moment, considering giving in – for precipitation, false validation and avoidance of conflicts that would come with “yes” – she was in the same impossible situation as so many women before her.

As a public figure, Lena Dunham has written a lot about trauma, in particular on the way rape at the beginning of adulthood has had a concrete effect on her life over the years. But she also recently presented herself for having said that she “wanted” that she had an abortion to help destigmatize the practice – a very useless expression of the idea that a person and their vision of the world are not simply the result of the biography.

Girls This seems to try to reconcile the need to honor the influence of the past on the present while recognizing that no individual is an island. Has the experience of Mr. Lasky changed Hannah forever? Maybe. It could be the reason why she wants to “write stories that make people feel less alone than [she] did, “the exact type of history that brought her to Chuck’s apartment. But this previous trauma, in itself, did not create the new that she lived in this episode. Neither, theoretically, necessary for Hannah to experience what she experienced to worry about the accusers of Chuck.

Why is Chuck such a snack? Girls Do not say that it is because of a specific circumstance in its past. It is not only because he is what he calls an “excited fucked”. It’s just because he can be like that. Because he has success and men, he can put women in places like the one in which he put Hannah. It can expect that they often consent, sick or not. He can even expect other men to tell women not to complain later.

What he can no longer expect, Girls suggests is that women are really silent. In the last moments of the episode, Hannah looks at Chuck’s daughter playing the flute. She alternates her gaze between the girl and her father, perhaps weighing the implications of what has just happened and what she should do on this subject. If Hannah writes on her actions, she can hurt him in a way that harms her daughter. But she continues to look at the girl. It could well be implemented in a situation like the one that Hannah has just been put. She may have already been.

While Hannah leaves, we see a handful of women walking in the opposite direction on the sidewalk, then turning to enter her building. It is read as a symbolism: a nod to all past and future women who can relate to what Hannah has just lived, as different as their individual stories could be.